Choose your topic. This sounds easier than it is. Sometimes part of the research process is discovering that your topic is too big, too small, or too complicated. You have not wasted time if you change your topic. You have just refined your research into a more manageable thing.

Starting your research.Make your thesis statement or topic into a question. For example, instead of "Television advertising affects girls' self-esteem," change it to "what are the effects of television advertising on girls?"

Identify the main concepts in your question. They are: television, advertising and girls.

Some keywords will work better than others. If television, advertising, girls give you no results think of other related terms that may work better. Media, marketing, children, or childhood are possible alternatives.

You'll notice that self-esteem and effects are not identified as main concepts. Perhaps they should be. Try them as search terms. If they work, then use them. Generally though these terms do not give a lot of useful results.

Remember as you do your research you will start to understand the subject better and your choice of keywords will improve. You may find that you need to do some of your searches again in order to find articles/books that you missed the first time because you weren't using the right words.

Choosing Resources.Usually your instructor will tell you what resources you need. If you need books use the library catalogue. If you need journal articles use our Research databases. If you need newspaper articles look at our Newspaper databases. If your instructor hasn't specified what resources you should use try to get a blend of books and articles. If you are using internet sites make sure you evaluate the information before you use it. Look at our guidelines on evaluating information resources.

Writing your paper.The library has a large collection of material to help you write your research paper. Search in our library catalogue using keywords like report writing or research and writing. Here's a sample of what we have: